


Reading Ahead

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Political Animals, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Meta, Steve Rogers apologizes for Age of Ultron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6758794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So, uh." Stevie ran his hands through his hair. "I guess you have some thoughts?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Ahead

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The One Who Knows](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2446697) by [Dira Sudis (dsudis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis). 



> While reading [Something Unpredictable](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6622354) by [alby_mangroves](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves), I was reminded of [The One Who Knows](), and I realized that since in that universe Steve Rogers is basically writing the MCU as a webcomic, it follows that TJ is going to have SOME THOUGHTS about whatever goes down in Civil War (AS OF POSTING I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET PLEASE DON'T SPOIL FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS). Then I realized that, the hell with that, TJ DEFINITELY has some thoughts about Age of Ultron.
> 
> Written in a frantic burst the morning before seeing _Civil War_ , so please excuse any rough edges. Thanks to Alby for encouraging this, and to the usual suspects for chiming in!

When TJ moved in with Stevie, they sat down and made rules about all kinds of things, so they would both know how not to fuck this up. TJ had always thought of himself as hating rules, but when it was him and Stevie making them--when the rules were a big list of ways not to make Stevie sad or angry or hurt or physically ill--they were reassuring.

One of the rules was that anything Stevie left out in plain sight was fair game for TJ to read or look at, even if it obviously wasn't finished yet. So despite Stevie's wide-eyed and slightly horrified look when he came in and found TJ frowning over the binder labeled AGE OF ULTRON, TJ knew for sure that he wasn't the one who'd done anything wrong.

It wasn't as good a feeling as he would have thought.

Stevie dropped his bag and phone on the kitchen counter and came over to the table where TJ was sitting, holding the big binder in his lap. He'd already read the whole thing; parts of it were scripted in detail, with accompanying sketches in various stages of completion, while other parts were just notes on the connecting scenes that would be needed. Still, the shape of the story was perfectly clear from what TJ had in his hands.

Stevie's hands went toward it like he wanted to pull it away, then jerked back, and he pulled a chair around to sit knee to knee with TJ instead.

"So, uh." Stevie ran his hands through his hair. "I guess you have some thoughts?" 

TJ laughed a little wildly. He knew it was dumb. It was _so dumb_ to get this worked up over Stevie's comic--this one wasn't even all Stevie's, it was a team-up with the _Iron Man_ guys. He knew that, but...

Stevie had invented Bucky for him, from him. Stevie had killed Bucky when he was trying to let TJ go, and resurrected him to pray for TJ's recovery. He'd written an amazing arc to tell TJ's story in a way that maybe only the two of them really understood; TJ had cried half the night after he saw Stevie's final art for the part at the end where Bucky saved Captain America right back. They hadn't actually been able to talk about what Stevie meant by it for another few days, but when they finally did it wound up leading them here, to this apartment they shared in Brooklyn, and TJ being allowed to see stuff that Stevie wasn't done with yet.

"Is there," TJ swallowed hard. "I don't see the secret page. Are you gonna do a secret page?"

Stevie usually did that, when he had a big arc like this; at the end there would be a secret extra page buried somewhere on his website, a little bonus piece of the story for fans to find if they went looking. Maybe that was where Bucky would turn up, in all of this. Hidden away somewhere safe from all the chaos.

Stevie leaned forward, putting his hands on TJ's knees and looking up into his face. "No, I--no. The secret page is actually right in the arc this time, it was this whole idea Tony had to set up the larger arc. What you saw... This is the whole thing."

TJ dragged his gaze up from the binder to meet Stevie's eyes, earnest and intent on him. That was why it was so ridiculous to be upset; no matter how long Captain America went without finding Bucky in Stevie's comics, TJ was still waking up next to Stevie every morning while he wrote this. He couldn't doubt that Stevie loved him, that Stevie was going to stick with him, even if it seemed as improbable as super-Steve in tights some days.

It was just killing him a little not to be part of the story anymore.

"Bucky's not in it," he said, because Stevie was just staring anxiously at him instead of telling him why.

Stevie winced. "I know. It's--you saw the part where Cap and Sam talk about looking for him, right? I'm not writing him out, but he's still a secret."

TJ looked away sharply. His relationship with Stevie had stayed a secret for all of about three days; it would have been impossible to keep people from finding out, and trying to hide it would only have made everything worse. TJ hadn't been able to bear the idea of sneaking around anyway--not after Sean--so he'd gotten a Twitter account and got it verified and kicked that cat right out of the bag.

He'd tried to explain to Stevie beforehand what it would mean, publicly dating Thomas Hammond. Stevie had been all for it, but TJ knew that nothing could really prepare a normal person for life in that glare.

"I guess that'd be pretty nice," he muttered.

"Okay, no," Stevie said, his voice shifting abruptly from apologetic to exasperated.

TJ looked back at him, startled, and didn't resist when Stevie tugged the binder out of his hands. He followed that up by climbing onto TJ's lap, looping his arms around TJ's neck. TJ got his hands on Stevie's narrow back, feeling reassured already by Stevie's stubborn look, his familiar weight and the feel of his wiry little body in TJ's arms.

"I'm not hiding you away in the comic because I wish I could keep you-- _us_ \--hidden in real life," Stevie said firmly. "Come on, Tommy, you know me, you know hiding's not what I do."

TJ snorted. "But you know it's what _I_ do."

There were a bunch of sketches of a farm in the binder, and they looked awfully familiar. Stevie knew a thing or two about where TJ went to hide away.

"Well you know it's not something I fuckin' encourage, either," Stevie insisted, ducking in for a quick, hard kiss. TJ tightened his hold, giving himself up to the heat and certainty of Stevie's mouth. Maybe they could just skip to having makeup sex, maybe he didn't have to tell Stevie any of the stuff he'd thought when reading the comic. Then he wouldn't have to hear Stevie tell him he was wrong, that he was too hung up on seeing himself in Bucky to understand this other story Stevie was telling.

"I mean, yeah," Stevie said, pulling away just to lean his forehead against TJ's, so TJ could still feel every breath against his mouth. "Yeah, I'm not ready to write Cap and Bucky getting back together yet, because I'm kinda busy having you back in real life and I try not to bleed my own actual heart into my comic without giving myself a little time to figure out what I'm trying to say. I can't just draw a page a day of Cap and Bucky fucking on every available surface, that is not the genre I'm going for."

TJ pulled back, the calculations suddenly clicking into place. He hated politics, but he'd still been raised by people who were experts at managing a message and using everything they said to drive toward their goals. The reflexes were there, even if he despised them.

"Are you saving the part where they get back together until I fuck something up so you can use it to fix me?"

Stevie's face--God, he should never be on television--was enough of an answer, but he said determinedly, "Maybe I'm saving it until I fuck something up so I can use it to apologize, huh?"

TJ snorted and smacked a hand down on the AGE OF ULTRON binder. "Well, Stevie, you got some explaining to do now."

Stevie sighed, nodding and shifting his weight back on TJ's knees. "Some of it is--I did that team-up thing before with Tony, back when I was still launching the Cap comic and it hadn't really taken off yet, and I needed the exposure of a crossover, you know? So I signed on to do a few of these, and now that my profile's gotten a _lot_ higher, Tony wants to get in and capitalize, and I wasn't ready to do another big Cap and Bucky arc anyway. This is kind of a side thing, and some of it is stuff Tony needs for this meta-narrative he's putting together."

"Uh-huh," TJ said. "And this business with Hawkeye suddenly having a secret family..."

"Look, the gender ratio was getting kind of ridiculous! The story needs more female characters! I introduced a female character! Laura's a total badass, she just hasn't had a chance to show it here yet."

TJ sat back, taking his hands off Stevie to fold his arms across his chest. "Yeah, speaking of badass women..."

Stevie covered his face with his hands. "Ugh. Okay, look. You've _met_ Natasha. You know she's... self-protective."

"I know I grew up with the Secret Service and Natasha still strikes me as going a little over the top with personal safety," TJ agreed, scooting down in the chair a little just to watch Stevie squirm on his lap. "But I get it, I get that she's got her reasons."

"She definitely does. So it's not gonna surprise you that there are rules about how I'm allowed to portray her in the comic. I draw her with red hair, looking nothing like she looks, all the little details are different even though the--the core of the character, the heart of her, is the same. Right? The stuff she went through as a kid--I had to make it into something else, something that wouldn't give her away."

"So that's why Natasha can't date Sam in the comics, because they're together in real life and that could give her away. But--"

Stevie shook his head. "People reading the comics, somehow they-- I didn't think I was giving Natasha and Sam any kind of vibe together in the Winter Soldier arc, but people started wanting to see them together, pairing them up. Natasha found that out and she--I didn't really catch it, because she gets really quiet when she's really not okay with something, but Sam told me she was freaking out, that I was putting something in the comic without even realizing it. 

"She feels like, if I was giving away their relationship without knowing, maybe I was giving away other stuff, and she just... she didn't feel safe. Doesn't. And I can't write my Natasha out of the comic, she's too important, but--I can't let the real Natasha get hurt by that. So I gotta make sure comic Natasha is really, really different. And Bruce doesn't care who I pair him with, so..."

TJ scrubbed a hand through his hair and then reached for the binder, flipping it open and finding the scene where this whole Natasha and Bruce thing happened out of fucking nowhere.

"Stevie, I get that, that's a good idea, but if that's the plan you actually gotta make people _buy_ this. Clumsy coverups always draw way more attention than the thing they're covering, okay? Believe me, that is a thing I know backward and forward. So if this is important, if it's about keeping Nat safe, we gotta do better than what you've got here."

Stevie licked his lips, his posture changing a little. "We?” 

TJ blinked. He hadn't meant to say that, but...

"Yeah," he said firmly. "I mean--even if Bucky's not gonna be around to help Cap with this clusterfuck, that doesn't mean I can't help you, right? I'm already here, we're already--" 

Stevie kissed him again before he had to find a word for it, and TJ pulled him in tight, his arms around Stevie's lower back pressing them together as they kissed hungrily, frantically. TJ honestly meant to leave it at that and move on to kitchen counter sex, but his brain was running off on its own track now that he knew what the problem was, what kind of narrative they needed to establish.

He pulled back to say, "Okay, I mean--there's stuff we can fix within the arc--and you're gonna do some stuff with Laura too, so my mom and Nana don't come up here to give you a piece of their mind about trying to fix your gender ratio by writing a wife-and-mother character who's obviously--"

TJ stopped short, abruptly realizing what kind of inspiration Stevie might have had for a quietly badass mom kissing her hero husband goodbye and staying home to look after her kids. Stevie's dad had been a cop; he'd been killed before Stevie was old enough to remember him, and Mrs. Rogers had taken Stevie down to North Carolina after that, for a fresh start somewhere safe. No wonder he’d put Laura on a farm, hidden away.

"Yeah, I know, Laura needs work," Stevie said quietly. "That was kind of self-indulgent, letting her have that--that quiet life. I gotta make her more--"

TJ kissed him again. The character did need work, but he wasn't gonna press Stevie too hard about her all at once, either.

"And you can't do this thing with Natasha just in the big arc," TJ said firmly. "She's freaking out now, and this is still, what, weeks out from even starting? Months? You gotta take the time you've got before this to write some little one-shots and mini-arc things, pulling your Natasha away from the real one, developing things between her and the other characters. That way when we get this dynamic in the big arc, it'll all make sense, and people will buy in and go chasing off where you want them. She's right about that--it's obvious where your heart is with your comics. If you're not really careful it's gonna be obvious where it isn't."

Stevie leaned in to touch their foreheads together, huffing out a sigh against TJ's mouth. "That's really gonna cut into my time for drawing pictures I can't post of Cap and Bucky fucking on every available surface in this apartment, Tommy."

TJ grinned. He'd seen a few of those; it really was obvious where Stevie's heart was. "We all make sacrifices, Stevie. Come on, I'll help."

**Author's Note:**

> [This story is also on Tumblr, and so am I!](http://dsudis.tumblr.com/post/143902297184/political-animalsmcu-fic-reading-ahead)


End file.
